The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
Traditionally, execution of a process involving multiple sequential operations has required the operations to have knowledge of the sequence in which they are to be executed. In particular, each operation must have knowledge of the operation previous thereto. In order for an operation to know when to begin execution, the operation must then listen for the previous operation to identify when such previous operation is complete. Unfortunately, this technique for executing a process is limited, including for example the requirement that the operations involved in the process have knowledge of each other and further the requirement that the operations listen for one another.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide techniques enabling process operations to execute in order without necessarily having knowledge of one another, to avoid programming the operations themselves to follow a particular sequence, as well as improving the ease by which the sequence of operations may be changed.